THE ART OF ORIGINAL FILMMAKING

Shame

Point of View
In an age of self medication, self-mutilation, self-help gurus and self satisfaction, Shame is not a simple film to watch, but a stimulating and significant eye-opener; in it lays dormant forbidden fears, sinful desires and shocking secrets that mask our true identity and reveal a darker side of our humanity that ultimately shines a light on true happiness.
Bold, brave and extremely daring, Shame deals head on with sexual addiction and the fear of commitment.  Although there's full frontal nudity and some graphic sexual scenes, its eroticism never offends; there is a sincere honest in its telling that offers a realistic journey into a realm of sexuality .
Crucified by sex and imprisoned by an insatiable sexual appetite, the character played with verve and vitality by Michael Fassbender is not a likeable or compassionate human being. Brandon, a young New York Executive, may seem secure and sociable on the surface, and comes across as the man every woman want to be with, and the kind of guy that every man want to be friends with, but underneath this glossy façade lies the malicious soul of a man who is abusive towards women, and shamelessly uses them to satisfy his own carnal pleasure then discards them physically and emotionally.
Fortunately, Shame is not a trashy and shameless exploitation film, but a masterful and artful British film from director Steve McQueen, and marks the second collaboration with Fassbender (who starred in Mc Queen's Hunger and was also seen in Inglourious Basterds)
Brandon's apparent luxurious and contented lifestyle crumbles when his rebellious and free spirited sister Sissy, an up-and-coming singer, gate crashes his promiscuous routine and creates a vulnerable awareness that confronts his habitual addiction and corrupt mindset.
Fassbender's alluring and brutal charisma is powerfully challenged by Carey Mulligan (An Education), who delivers an unforgettable performance, turning Shame into a lethal warzone between brother and sister, one that you most definitely will never forget.
Fassbender is mesmerizing in his daring and heartfelt performance, stripping his character bare with a raw and emotionally charged sincerity.
Mulligan is equally powerful in her sensational portrayal of vulnerable souls in search of love and meaning, and whose fragile disposition severely impacts on her brother's moral code as well as their susceptible sibling rivalry.
The sibling rivalry is Shame is unmatched in its telling and delivery; the love-hate relationship is explosive and destroys their humanity, yet heals their own humaneness and guides them to a moving process of transformation and spiritual healing.
It's a fierce and loving battle that never spins out of control, but is powerfully manipulated by the smart script (co-written by Mc Queen and Abi Morgan, who also wrote The Iron Lady).
Morgan perfectly understand the role of a woman dominated by man and whose sexuality is exploited, just as Mc Queen aptly explored obsessive behavior in Hunger.
It is interesting to note that whereas the stunning local Afrikaans film Skoonheid brilliantly explored the tragic results of repressed sexuality in a small-town conservative society in Bloemfontein, how superbly Shame shows sexual prowess and promiscuity in a liberated society in a city like New York.
Both films clearly reveal how shrouded sexuality becomes malignant and fosters a harmful guilt trip that triggers irrational behavior and a corrupt conscious.
With films like Shame, Skoonheid and Shortbus, human sexuality becomes a potent conversation piece that will hopefully set people free from the constrictions imposed by morality and society.
McQueen paints a stark and visually arresting portrait of a man trapped in guilt, and powerfully uses sound and image to crawl into the soul of his characters.
Shame will offer discerning audiences and anyone looking for first-rate cinema a visceral and emotionally challenging experience that should not be missed under any circumstances.
Don't be ashamed to share Shame with a friend or loved ones; it's one of those rare films that has a special charm and undeniable artistry that is too good to deny.  Reviewed by Daniel Dercksen. Rating 5/5

The Story
Brandon is a 30-something man living in New York who is unable to manage his sex life. After his wayward younger sister moves into his apartment, Brandon's carefully managed lifestyle is thrown into chaos.
If Steve McQueen's first film, Hunger, was about a man with no freedom, Shame is an examination of a character who has all the western freedoms and who uses his body to create his own prison.
Brandon (Michael Fassbender) is a young successful thirty-something living   comfortably in his apartment in New York. As a distraction from day-to-day cubicle life, he seduces women, juggling a string of doomed romances and one-night stands. The tightly controlled rhythm of Brandon's life begins to collapse, however, when his wayward, unruly sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) arrives for an unannounced visit. Her disruptive presence in his life propels Brandon further into New York's dark underbelly as he tries to escape her need for connection and the memories she stands for.
Shame is a compelling and timely examination of the nature of need, how we live our lives and the experiences that shape us.

About the production
Shame was filmed in New York City in February and March of 2011. The film is the second collaboration to involve director Steve McQueen (Hunger) and actor Michael Fassbender (Inglourious Basterds, X-Men: First Class). In Shame, Fassbender plays Brandon, a young New York executive who escapes from his secure existence by seeking out sexual encounters. His routine is turned on its head by the unexpected arrival of his younger sister Sissy, an up-and-coming singer, played by Academy Award nominee Carey Mulligan (An Education, the upcoming The Great Gatsby).
The film continues in the visceral and intimate vein McQueen established in Hunger, his 2008 directorial debut, while broadening its scope from just one central character to explore the challenges of contemporary human connections. After the critical success of Hunger, which won McQueen the Caméra d'Or (first-time director) award when it premiered at Cannes, McQueen and Fassbender were eager to work   together once again. "Michael is a genius, really," says McQueen. "I want to work with the best actor there is, and I think he is, basically."
Fassbender was likewise drawn to work with McQueen again out of his admiration for the director's tendency to push actors to their limits. "Steve really sets the tone, so everybody is kind of terrified and excited at the same time," Fassbender says. "It's sort of like letting go and getting rid of the safety net and free-falling."
"Working with Steve is kind of like stepping up to a cliff," says James Badge Dale, who plays the role of David, Brandon's philandering boss. "You can't see what's at the bottom of that cliff, and he says, just go, just jump, and you don't know what's going to happen. … And Steve is jumping also, by taking a chance with you."
The opportunity to work with McQueen and his cast inspired Carey Mulligan to pursue the role even before being approached. "When the script came along and I found out it was Steve and Michael, I knew it was such a dream job," Mulligan says of the duo. "I met with Steve for coffee in London and he basically kept trying to leave, and I had to keep stopping him and say, 'No no! You haven't given me the job yet!' I basically bossed him into giving me the role." The need to capture Sissy's emotional and unpredictable nature made new demands on Mulligan as an actress, although this was the central reason for her passion to take it on.
Shame is the first film from See-Saw Films since the Academy Award winning The King's Speech. Producer Iain Canning notes that both Hunger and Shame share a preoccupation with the body. "Hunger was about a man who has no freedom; he uses his body to create the only freedom he can," Canning says. "We're telling the opposite story in Shame--the story of a man who has every freedom, and yet he uses his body to create his own prison."
Co-writer Abi Morgan, an admirer of both Fassbender and Mulligan, says the chance to work with the pair on Shame was "a bit of a dream come true." "I knew that the two of them would be very exciting," she says. Morgan recently wrote The Iron Lady, the biopic of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher featuring Meryl Streep in the title role.
On working in New York City, producer Emile Sherman notes, "It was a really exciting prospect for us as producers to be filming in New York. I've never made a film in New York before; I'm based in Sydney, Iain Canning is based in London. [New York] is one of the greatest cities of world. We were just so welcomed by the filmmaking community there and we had a wonderful line producer and co-producer, Bergen Swanson. It's a great place to make movies and we'd love to make a film there again."
Shame is a See-Saw Films production with Film4 and the UK Film Council. The film is produced by Iain Canning and Emile Sherman of See-Saw Films.

Director/ co-writer
British video artist Steve McQueen distinguished himself by working in diverse media; though he began with film-related projects, he quickly branched out to include sculpture and still photography. He began his formal training by studying at the Chelsea School of Art and at Goldsmith College in London, where he began making student films. His early short-subject works were almost exclusively silent and black-and-white. They included the short Bear (1993), which depicted a brief and
unusual encounter between two naked men; the 1997 Deadpan, in which a gentleman stood in the middle of a building as it repeatedly collapsed around him; and Drumroll (1998), for which McQueen affixed cameras to a barrel and rolled the barrel through the streets of Manhattan.
McQueen shot and released Hunger, his debut mainstream feature, in 2008. Starring Michael Fassbender, it dramatizes the last painful months of Bobby Sands, a famous Irish Republican Army activist who protested his brutal treatment by guards in Belfast's Maze Prison by undergoing a debilitating hunger strike and ultimately starving himself to death.
Co-writer
Abi Morgan's plays include Skinned and Sleeping Around (Paines Plough); Tiny Dynamite (Traverse); Tender (Hampstead); Splendour - which won a Fringe First at the Edinburgh Festival in 2000, and Fugee (National Theatre). Her television work includes My Fragile Heart, Murder, Sex Traffic - the multi award-winning drama for Channel 4, Tsunami - The Aftermath, White Girl and Royal Wedding. Her new series for Kudos and the BBC called The Hour is currently airing on BBC 1. Her film writing credits include Brick Lane, an adaptation of Monica Ali's bestseller. She also has a number of films in development including The Invisible Woman for BBC films, Suffragettes for Film Four, Focus and Ruby Films, Little Mermaid for Working Title and most recently wrote Iron Lady, for DJ Films.

The cast
Michael Fassbender previously starred as the late hunger striker Bobby Sands in Steve McQueen's Hunger. The performance earned him the British Independent Film Award (BIFA) and Irish Film and Television Award (IFTA) for Best Actor; a London Film Critics Circle Award; and Best Actor honors from the 2008 Stockholm and Chicago International Film Festivals. He was honored at the latter festival the following year as Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank. The portrayal brought him BIFA and IFTA nominations as well as his second London Film Critics Circle Award. He was also an IFTA nominee for his performance in Marc Munden's miniseries The Devil's Whore.
Michael's upcoming films include Matthew Vaughn's highly anticipated origins story X-Men: First Class as Erik Lehnsherr, better known as Magneto; David Cronenberg's drama A Dangerous Method as Carl Jung opposite Keira Knightley and Viggo Mortensen; Steven Soderbergh's ensemble action thriller Haywire, with Ewan McGregor and Antonio Banderas; and, in a reteaming with Steve McQueen, the drama Shame opposite Carey Mulligan.
Born in Germany and raised in Ireland, Michael is a graduate of London's prestigious Drama Centre. His breakthrough role came as Sgt. Burton "Pat" Christenson in the award-winning epic miniseries Band of Brothers. After making his feature-film debut in Zack Snyder's blockbuster 300, his subsequent movies included Joel Schumacher's Blood Creek; James Watkins' Eden Lake; Jimmy Hayward's Jonah Hex; François Ozon's Angel with Romola Garai; Neil Marshall's Centurion; and Focus Features' Jane Eyre.

Carey Mulligan was last seen in seen in the action thriller Drive, opposite Ryan Gosling, Bryan Cranston and Oscar Isaac. Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn and based on the James Sallis novel, the film follows a nameless Hollywood stuntman (Gosling) who moonlights as a freelance getaway driver during robberies.
This summer, Mulligan started production on director Baz Luhrmann's feature adaptation of The Great Gatsby, based on the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel. Mulligan plays Daisy Buchanan, the love of Jay Gatsby, played by Leonardo DiCaprio. The film will be released by Warner Brothers in 2012. In September 2010, Mulligan starred in Fox Searchlight's Never Let Me Go, based on the award winning novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. The film was featured at the Telluride Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival. Mulligan also won a 2010 British Independent Film Award in the category of Best Actress for her performance in the film.
Also in September 2010, Mulligan appeared in Oliver Stone's Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps. She received an Academy Award nomination, a Golden Globe nomination, and a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination and garnered critical acclaim for her starring role in the Sony Classics film An Education, written by Nick Hornby and directed by Lone Scherfig. An Education debuted at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival to rave reviews. Mulligan won a Best Actress British Independent Film Award and was named Best Actress by the National Board of Review and the Orange British Academy of Film (BAFTA). Multiple critics' associations also recognized her performance.


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